Free Ultraviolet by Joseph Robert Lewis

bike or something? How’d you get here?”
    I glanced at him, still clenching my jaw, still not really trusting myself to be civil. I held out my gloved hands. “Lux, scooter.”
    The hologram materialized, glowing and humming softly, and I stepped on.
    “Damn!” Felix stared at me. “That’s amazing.”
    I almost smiled. Almost. “Thanks. Let’s go.”
    Felix started pedaling across the lot. I could ride three times faster, but I didn’t mind slowing down for him. It was the first normal company I had had in over a week. It was nice. It was nice all the way across the huge parking lot, until we got to the front gate.
    Felix was just about to swipe his badge to open the bicycle gate when we saw the headlights on the road coming toward us. One, two, three cars, close together.
    “Quick, get back.” I zipped back from the gate into a shadowy spot between the glaring floodlights, and he hurried to follow me.
    The three cars rolled up to the fence and the gate rattled open to let them in.
    “Oh crap.”
    The cars pulled into the lot, but didn’t stray far from the gate. Doors opened, men in suits got out, and then they all took out their phones.
    “What are they doing?” Felix asked.
    I didn’t answer. It looked like they were all tapping away at some app, but then they started walking slowly away from the cars, gradually turning left and right as they moved. I focused on the man closest to us. He peered at his phone, then looked up and turned to face directly at us, and he started coming forward.
    “He sees us!” Felix moved like he was going to start pedaling away, as if there was somewhere he could possibly go on that bike to get to safety.
    I grabbed his arm. “No, he’s tracking us.”
    “What? How?”
    “I don’t know. Can they track the rubidium?” I pointed my thumb in the direction of my backpack.
    “No, no way.”
    “Then…” I looked at him. “It’s the badge. Throw away the badge, now, as far as you can.”
    “But I need it to—”
    “Get rid of it!”
    He grimaced, and then hurled the little plastic rectangle as hard as he could. It sliced cleanly through the air for a moment, and then tumbled over and dropped to the ground. It hadn’t gone very far.
    “Sorry,” he muttered.
    I rolled my eyes. “Get on my scooter.”
    “What about… okay.” He set his bike down quietly on the ground and swung onto the seat behind me with his arms around my waist.
    I had no idea if there was a weight limit for holograms, but there wasn’t time for any tests. The man with the phone was getting closer. In a few seconds, he would see us. The men behind him were starting to move in our direction too. It had to be now.
    I gunned the throttle and the black scooter accelerated across the lot. The man with the phone looked up sharply and reached for something that might have been a gun, but we shot past him and then I aimed straight for the open gate behind the cars. The other men saw us too, and they all reached for their weapons or started barking orders or reports into their phones.
    But it didn’t matter. We were going at least forty miles an hour already, and in another second we’d be through the…
    The wheels of the holo-scooter stopped turning and we started to slide and skid across the parking lot. It was all I could do to keep us from falling over, especially with the extra weight behind me, but then the scooter flickered and we both fell off. Or should I say, we fell through.
    Right before I hit the ground I shouted, “Lux, off!” just to make sure the scooter didn’t try to rematerialize and burn some nice laser holes in my legs.
    We both hit the ground moving, still hurtling forward with the momentum of the scooter, and we rolled hard several times toward the gate before our bodies stopped.
    I guess there is a weight limit.
    I blinked. A little stunned, a little dazed, but not hurt. I stood up with the sounds of shoes thumping on pavement in my ears.
    The men!
    “Lux, shield!”
    The